News Digest

The severe thunderstorms that moved through Sheboygan County Thursday caused two power outages in the Plymouth Utilities service area.

According to Plymouth Utilities, the first outage occurred at 4:58 p.m. and lasted one minute, when an electric crew tripped open an electrical distribution circuit while handling emergency repairs to the electric system. The outage affected about 600 customers on the west side of Plymouth north of Summit Street — including Country Aire Road, County C, State 23, County P and Hillcrest Road, including the city’s northwest industrial park.

The second outage occurred at 5:10 p.m., when the crew followed up and tripped open an electrical distribution circuit to handle emergency repairs from a pole top fire.

Lightning had struck a utility pole near W6395 County Z, destroying the insulators and damaging the wire conductors. With the line de-energized, the crew replaced the insulators and repaired the circuit’s wire conductors.

The outage affected about 500 customers to the southwest of Plymouth in the towns of Plymouth, Greenbush, Forest, Lyndon, Mitchell, Osceola and Scott — including Country Aire Road, County Z, Oak Road, County ZZ, County S, State 67, County U, Tower Road and Forest Road, including the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution.

The power was off for 45 minutes before the crew was able to safely reenergize the circuit.

The staff at the Plymouth Wastewater Treatment Facility reported that Plymouth received 1.8 inches of rain from Thursday’s storm.

Show to wrap up summer reading season

The final special event at the Plymouth Public Library for the 2010 “Make a Splash” Summer Library Program will be held Wednesday, July 28.

Variety performer Jeff McMullen will perform at 10 a.m. for the read-to-me group and at 1:30 p.m. for readers. McMullen’s lively show includes physical comedy, juggling, balloons, mime, magic, and lots of audience participation.

All weekly reader cards and Chance It game boards must be completed and turned in by Saturday, Aug. 7. The library is open from 9 a.m. until noon on Saturdays during the summer.

For more information about the “Make a Splash” Summer Library Program or about McMullen’s performances, call the library at (920) 892-4416. Special needs accommodations can be made in advance by calling the library and asking for Library Director Martha Rosche.

Second summer session of Core Fitness set

There is a second chance to experience Core Fitness, a popular fitness classes offered by Plymouth Community Education and Recreation.

Core Fitness is a low-impact class that helps participants tighten and tone their midsections with exercise balls and strength bands, while also increasing their flexibility and balance.

It meets from 8 to 8:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from July 27 to Aug. 19 at the Riverview gym balcony. There is a cost.

For more information, visit www.plymouthcommed.org, call 892-5068 or visit Plymouth Community Education and Recreation on the north end of Plymouth High School, 125 Highland Ave.

DNR asking citizens to count deer

Beginning Aug. 1, Wisconsin citizens will have a new opportunity to be part of managing white-tailed deer in Wisconsin.

Dubbed Operation Deer Watch, people are being asked to record and report all deer they see between Aug 1 and Sept 30. Go to the Department of Natural Resources Web site (dnr.wi.gov) and click on the Operation Deer Watch button to get started.

“All deer seen including bucks, does and fawns should be reported during this two month period,” said Jason Fleener, assistant DNR deer specialist, in a press release announcing the program. “The observations will be entered into a database and will be used to determine doe to fawn ratios, which are a part of the population estimation equation.”

Summer deer observations have always been part of the population estimation process, according to DNR biologists. The number of deer seen and the number of fawns seen with each doe are indicators of annual production in deer herds. In addition to deer seen, observers are asked to note date and location. Only deer seen between sunrise and sunset are to be counted.

In previous years, the observation period lasted three months and only state and federal biologists, foresters, law enforcement and other government staff participated.

“One of the recommendations of a panel of experts that that reviewed our deer population estimation model a few years back was to increase the number of observers and to shorten the summer deer observation period to two months from three,” said Fleener “We hope to capitalize on the intense public interest in Wisconsin’s whitetail deer population. It’s a great chance for the public to help keep an eye-onthe herd and add a lot more observations to our database.”

Operation Deer Watch is yet one more way in which the deer enthusiasts can help monitor the herd. In 2009, the department launched a hunter observation Web site that asked hunters to record observations from their trips in the woods. Valuable information on species distribution, as well as, data the number of hunting days, hunting hours and environmental conditions they experienced was gathered. Nearly 20,000 hunting trips were logged into the online database. In addition, similar new data questions were added to the deer registration form that successful hunters complete and this provided over 320,000 observations.